I always find this type of question hard to answer, because I like to force myself to remember that billions of dollars are at stake, and so are many jobs of the people employed at Marvel lol and times are tough, generally money wise, and fans are... weird. I mean, I think the quality of a book like Journey Into Mystery, is better than Uncanny X-Men. I chose that example, because both are written by the same writer. Journey Into Mystery got to start pretty fresh ground up almost though, so I feel more of the writer gets to shine though. In Uncanny, they are carrying over plots from other writers and characters were already dealing with things before he picked up the pen. There is going to be a transition period. I think its a good book though... just not as good, original, creative or fun as Journey Into Mystery... thing is, I also understand why Uncanny X-Men sells twice as much. It has Emma Frost, Colossus, Cyclops, Magneto, Wolverine, in it usually, each week, on the cover so on... Journey Into Mystery has a little Thor, but mainly Loki is the main character. Now, I like Loki, and I like Thor, and I like Asgard so its easy for me to take a chance on that book. For all I know, there might be some awesome indy book I am missing out on each week because I have no interest in steam punk, or erm ladies (thats a Lady Mechanika reference yes)
Now... suppose Marvel could promote Journey Into Mystery more, and harder... but what if people still don't pick up the book, and instead just continue to pick up Wolverine the Best There Is or New Avengers? (not that there is anything wrong with those books, I actually like both kinda) I loved this mini from a while back, by Oeming, Ares. Totally revitalized the character and made him three dimensional and badass. I would have much preferred he wrote Siege than Bendis. and objectively, I think the end product would have been better, given the characters involved and the themes involved and the scope. (also would love Bendis writing more Alias or even imagine him doing Shadowland?) Then again, Siege would probably, possibly, not sold as well. I am not sure by how much, but given the tough times we are in... then again... this big event could have raised Oeming's profile enough that the next ongoing book he started writing sold better since that exposure writing a big event would let people know him and his style and this follow him. Then maybe the next event he did would do really well, 2 years later... so in a way its really about risk taking and risk management.
Marvel could be more proactive and take risks that could pay off in the future, but I can understand how now, they are sort of more on the defensive, acting out of fear almost, reacting to us customers and sticking to really tired and stale gimmicks to wring money from people. I mean, to return to Journey Into Mystery, its a Fear Itself tie in. One out of like... 50 lol I love tie ins, and will get most of them, but a lot of people will probably just skip it and assume its pointless like the rest, so we are jaded... but sort of for a good reason. Except if we don't care about quality and only about money (which is our right) Marvel itself sort of will do the same... care more about the money and less about the quality and thus flood the market with tie ins because short term, will make more money.
Anyway, books I recommend, are X-Factor, X-Men Legacy, Secret Warriors, Amazing Spider-man, Avengers Academy, Journey Into Mystery, Herc. Hmmm. Yeah... oh and Heroes For Hire...
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